Recent content by Swarm

Supposedly unless it's charged, it's just a cup. I would definitely keep a very close eye on them.

Chalk brood tends to clear up as the season improves and many consider the warmer temperature and drier weather to be a factor. Early flows and the positive effects of the nectar processing with beneficial enzymes added by the bees during this process are a little like self medication that clear...

I totally agree. We use marigolds, they enable the bees to be handled sensitively and offer enough protection with only the occasional sting.

I think this year the bees have been covering all bases. I have two colonies currently superseding and found another with a single, charged cell, it was in the same condition a fortnight later.

It's all about feeding, queen larvae receive way more attention, one of the reasons for huge cell builder colonies stuffed with nurse bees to ensure adequate feeding.

Five days, maybe, just maybe at a push six but we could be talking about hours in that case. There are a number of considerations, temperature being one, not all queens emerge on day sixteen.

They won't be going anywhere until one of them emerge as you have the queen, just go back in a week.

I think it depends on the bees, I reduced a colony to one cell on Saturday, they all sat nicely on the combs, it was very pleasant.

They are from a different supplier, he says so in one of his yootoob offerings.

They've always been dummied. 18 frames gives them an ideal nest size and they over winter with no feeding.

My double broods are all that size ;)

A queen from day 4, a newly hatched larva, can receive sufficient feeding to become an adequate queen. Ask yourself what queen breeders select when they graft. ;)

Set up an Amm colony with a screen board, three brood boxes and a couple of supers, nice big colony of beautiful bees. Went through the rest and found them very well populated and behaving themselves. Had a little collection of bees on one frame lug, they refused to move despite my request and...

You need to work out better communication.